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Sakuya finds herself on a mission specifically helping her (adoptive) father after Michiko reports that one of his deliveries is being held up by bandits.

"Special Delivery: Pride of a Snake"

Land of Lightning

Michiko stands at the gates, waiting patiently for her teammates. There are two minutes left to the ten that were allotted for the pair to get ready and everything. So for now, Michiko was just waiting. Atarashi and Roadblock stood at the gates for her and Yori. Sakuya would likely have to ride with one of them until they could give her riding lessons. Michiko makes a mental note that all students should be able to ride and it will likely be added to the curriculum. Now, whether or not a horse would cooperate was another thing, but at least the Shinobi would be able to ride.

Sakuya arrives, looking as if she rushed the entire process of getting ready for a mission. She even still has her glasses on, she rushed herself so much. Likely why she was the last one whom arrived. "Hebisuuhai Sakuya, reporting." She says giving a salute. "Zuzu as well. I'm already technically briefed, I suppose." Sakuya says, straightening herself out as Zuzu pokes out of her collar just to prove he was present. "Ah, I know Yori was around here…" She notes as she makes sure everyone is here and accounted for. "Good. Okay…" Given that it was the late, late evening, this was definitely some sort of stealth-based mission. Which means she needs to refrain from being loud, for once.

Yori arrives at the gate with time to spare! The young Saito has his normal pack filled with things like snacks and equipment he might need for the trip including extra kunai and his first aid kit. Once he arrives the boy bows deeply to Michiko and Sakuya. "Saito Yorishiro reporting for duty," he says by way of greeting, looking quite serious and business like at the moment because, ya know, mission! The Saito goes over the pat Atarashi's flank, then rub her long nose as he waits for Michiko to speak.

"Good! We're all here. Well, I'm not sure if you two overheard, but the bar's supplies were overtaken by bandits. And we need to go get rid of the bandits or guard the cart. Perhaps even both," she says, hopping onto her horse. "We should do this quickly. Sakuya-san's life depends on it, too," she adds with a faint smile in the Hebisuuhai's direction.

Sakuya lets out a little grunt at that. "I'll just cry, and if I'm loud enough, he'll let me in before I disturb the neighbors." She walks over and looks between both horses. "Oh, by the way…" Sakuya crosses her arm. "Which horse will I be taking?" Yori's horse would be ideal, if Zuzu wouldn't mock her and sing 'Sakuya and Yori sitting in a tree' the entire way. Michiko's horse might be a good choice… Or maybe she should… "Fine! Fine!" She forms hand-seals that are indicitave of a 'henge' ability. A few moments later, Sakuya has henged into a large white snake. "I'll ride with Michiko-sssan this time!" The henged serpent says as she begins to slither up the horse's leg.

Yori listens to Michiko's instructions but, well, they'd all been at the bar so it wasn't exactly hidden knowledge or anything! The boy nods to Michiko and opens his mouth to say that Sakuya can ride with him, but then she interrupts and starts going towards Michiko's horse. Ooookay. Yori looks to Michiko, shrugs slightly, then turns back to Atarashi and mounts up, looking back towards the others afterwards. "Don't worry. We'll find the goods and bring them back."

Michiko nods a bit, glad to have them on the team. She casually picks up Sakuya-snake and settles her around her neck. "Hmm… Strange feeling," she comments before nudging her horse onward. The trio would start making their way down the main road, and it would take a good hour to reach the people they were helping. The men had two wagons/carts with them, and they all looked a bit injured. Hmm! "Yori-san, I want you to tend to the ones with the injuries. Sakuya-san, keep an eye out for any incoming bandits. Yori-san, I'll ask some questions of the ones you aren't healing, and you can talk to the ones you are," she instructs, dismounting quickly once they were only a few feet from the merchants.

RPCOMBAT: Sakuya defends against with a HEBISUUHAI-SENSES…16

Sakuya curls around Michiko's shoulders and neck, head raised as she lets the oncoming winds funnel into her nose. The larger white snake flicks her tongue «So far, I smell nothing.» She communicates silently to Michiko and Yori, using her genjutsu prowess. «If they are coming, they aren't here -yet-.» The snake assumes. She remains on Michiko's shoulders even when the carriage stops. «Yori-san, I'll continue to keep a look-out. Do your best!» Sakuya knows that Michiko is going to make Yori try and heal them. It would just make sense, given all the hard work he is putting into learning.

Yori follows Michiko and the snake Sakuya, Atarashi keeping pace with the other horse. Once they arrive and Yori takes in the scene he frowns deeply, taking a moment to look around to see if there's anything obvious that might be a danger. But failing that he dismounts and moves over to the person who seems the most injured. Luckily the most injured still wasn't too bad off. Some kind of stab wound or something. Or maybe they fell on a sharp rock! Regardless Yori kneels down in front of the older man. "I'm Saito Yorishiro of Kumogakure. We're here to help. Please hold still while check your wounds." He places a hand on the mans shoulder and pulses a bit of chakra through to identify all the injuries, then it changes to green medical ninjutsu. "Um, can you tell me what happened?"

Michiko starts talking to a few people, the ones that don't need healing right away. Both she and Yori would get the same story, too. "Well, we were just going along the path when the bandits jumped us. There were about three of them, so we were able to beat them back quick. But they said they'd return with more folk, so we sent word that we'd be a bit slower and also needed some protection. Seems like you guys came in time." Indeed, Sakuya would not sense much of anything, and neither did Yori.

Sakuya raises her head, flicking her tongue, and continuing to test her abilities on the surrounding environment. «Maybe they were warded off. Got what they wanted. oto-san will be happy, I suppose. Still. They wounded the caravan, but didn't take anything?» Silly bandits.

RPCOMBAT: Sakuya defends against with a HEBISUUHAI-SENSES…19

Yori nods as he listens to the story, healing the wound and numbing some of the pain so it wouldn't be quite so bad or long of a recovery. But it would also still hurt if he moved the area too much, since that's how he'd know he would need to stop that action! "How long ago did this happen?" the teen asks as he moves over one person and does the same thing again, checking the injuries first before sending healing chakra through.

"They attacked about a day ago. I'm glad the message got to you all so quick," the men tell Yori. "They weren't very good, but they were ruthless. They didn't mind if they killed one of us. I'm glad all they did was give one some pretty deep cuts." Michiko frowns a bit as she hears the news, but nods. "Well, we'll be here to protect you. The village is about twenty five miles away, and we were traveling pretty fast. So we should reach it in an hour, maybe two." Sakuya might notice a bit of rustling in the trees…

RPCOMBAT: Sakuya defends against with a HEBISUUHAI-SENSES…19
RPCOMBAT: Yori defends against with a PERCEPTION…33

«Yooori-san, Michiko-sensei. I hear something, over there! I can't smell anything, so it might be a false alarm.» Why wouldn't she smell dirty bandits after all? Sakuya loosens her coils around Michiko, preparing to lunge and take a bite out of anything if they suddenly come in for another attack. «Why wouldn't I smell anything?»

Yori finishes up with the next injured person and is almost done, only two others left. But their injuries are quite minor and the boy has a feeling he might need his attention elsewhere. "You two, get into the cart. Anyone that can fight get on either side of the cart and protect it." Yori is just randomly giving orders to people when it should probably be Michiko doing so. But once he gets in a certain state of mind he just tends to take control. And his uncertainty vanishes too. Yori turns to whoever is driving the cart and nods. "Let's move slowly. Maybe is they see we're moving and are prepared for their assault they'll think twice. Once we have you safely in Kumogakure we can send out a team to flush out these bandits."

Michiko shrugs lightly. "I'm not sure why, but… They might have something." she tells Sakuya in a soft voice. A bit louder, she says, "Yori-san, keep the rear as we travel. I'll take point." Then she starts making her way forward, not minding that Yori took control for a bit. Sakuya is left to her own devices, but Michiko hopes that the girl stays henge-d. As they start moving, there are more (obvious) shuffles within the forests around. The bandits are moving with them. "Sakuya-san…" Michiko murmurs. "Tell Yori-san that I sense about ten men… They aren't attacking, though… I'm not sure why."

RPCOMBAT: Michiko defends against with a TREMOR-SENSE…33
COMBAT: Michiko focuses 3618 stamina to turn it into 5000 usable chakra!

Sakuya is indeed still curled around Michiko's shoulder like a scarf. Going alone might get her killed, or captured. At least, here, she can act as a mid-range one-way communication device. «Yori, there are ten. I think most of them are on the left side of the road. They are not displaying open aggression.» Sakuya's tongue flicks as she prepares herself for combat. She can already feel Michiko preparing for something, if not by chakra then by the tensing in her shoulders…

Yori hears Sakuya's words and frowns even more than he had been while his attention searches the area around them slowly, passing over where the people are hiding as if he doesn't know they're there. Atarashi's reins are just over the side of the wagon so the horse keeps pace behind it while not actually keeping it tied up to anything. Atarashi was smart and well trained, he didn't really need to worry. Yori would like to talk to Michiko but that's not really an option now. He just has to hope she realizes they're probably heading into a trap up ahead. She's smart, she'll know…right?

Michiko notices that a lot of the men up ahead have settled down, as if waiting… If that was the case, then Michiko would take the bait… in a sense. She hopped off her horse (after nudging Sakuya off), and something quick happened… That not many would see. The real Michiko would sink into the ground just as a Michiko appeared from the earth. One made of pure metal, but it looked a lot like Michiko! The clone walked forward, waving for the cart to travel a bit more slowly. And then the trap was sprung after about moving ten feet forward. The clone was hit with a lot of arrows, but all of them bounced off harmlessly. Michiko rises from the earth and says, "Well, looks like we found our targets."

Sakuya unhenges as soon as she is on the ground, and sends Zuzu off to quickly. Her plan was to make an opening for her partner to slither up the trees and sink it's fang into one of the archers that were attacking. Her hands flash through handseals, as she attempts to implant incredibly loud and distracting sounds into their minds. Just in time for Zuzu to find and sink his teeth into the neck of one of the tree-bound bandits.

As the trap is sprung Yori's attention turns to the rest of their surroundings in case more people emerge while he jumps up into the open cart and draws his sword. If they tried to shoot arrows at the cart he would keep them from hitting any of the people. He'd let Michiko, Sakuya and Zuzu take care of the ones ahead while he guarded the wagon itself. If that was all there was he'd have zero qualms about it!

Michiko watches as more arrows come for her, but she dodges all of them with ease. A few of them bounce off of her armor, but regardless, she remains untouched. A few of the men find themselves panicked by the scary noises that Sakuya unleashes, as none of them are expecting genjutsu, and then that distraction was enough for one of them to get a very nasty snake bite. Being a strike to the neck, he ends up killed. The nine who are still around start shooting a bunch of arrows! Well, all but two. They're still a bit spooked by the strange noises.

Sakuya would dance around arrows as she dashed into the tree-line to back up her ninsnake. The man that was bitten wasn't killed outright, so she moved to attempt to strike them. She would draw a Kunai and finish him off, before she jumped onto another branch after Zuzu had wrapped around her waist. Though right before she struck the enemy, she took an arrow right into her thigh from another bandit on an adjacent tree-branch. Zuzu launches himself off of Sakuya to bite into the man's neck, at his trachea, while Sakuya grits the pain and uses her unwounded leg to launch herself at the man's arm. Both snakes would inject their venom if they contacted!

Yori jumps off the cart as the arrows come, moving aside to let them hit wood or dirt. As the last arrow moves past him the boy moves in after the men, leaving the cart folk to watch after themselves and call for help if they need it. Instead he zips forward, slashing left and right as he goes from person to person, trying to make it a fairly clean if not quick death.

Yori and Sakuya are both able to strike out at their attackers. For Yori, he strikes all but one. The good thing about being on a team is that one can rely on their teammates for a bit of backup. Sakura enters the fray shortly after, and the pair of snakes are able to inject a poison into one of the men's bloodstream. The wounds were all shallow, though, so the men are able to attack again. Michiko is dealing with the four she had initially taken on, simply slitting their throats with a kunai while letting her genin take care of the other six targets. Better to give them a bit of action to keep them happy, no?
The three facing Yori are bleeding a bit, but they discard their bows and resort to kicks and punches to try and get the Saito down. The two that weren't ea- I mean poisoned also work with simple punches and kicks now that their target is in close range. One of them, oddly, has an added bit of wind to his punches, so even if he misses, Sakuya might find herself getting cut…

Sakuya smiles as she is flanked by the other two bowman whom were peppering her from a range not a few moments before. With Zuzu around her waist, she gives the strikes a large margin of space as she side steps the first coming from behind, though she can feel the breeze, which alerted her that these thugs could use ninjutsu. The next strike was harder to dodge, given the sweeing motion of the strikes, forcing her to bend backwards. to dodge it, nearly falling over. Zuzu would strike out to latch on to the bandit in front of her's neck, in an attempt to keep her from falling backwards. Sakuya, while being suspended by Zuzu, would reach into her Kimono for throwing-kunai, attempting to follow up her partner's save before righting herself once more.

Yori avoids the attacks of the men by simply not being there as they strike. Instead he reappears behind them and lashes out again with the sword, the blade glowing softly as lightning charges it and flows through the special blade. He slices at the men quickly, attempting to bring them down with the least amount of time so he can move on to help Sakuya should she need it. As it is he's watching her and her fight out of the corner of his eye to make sure nothing bad happens…

"Oy!" shouts the bandit as a snake suddenly latches onto him. He flails backward for a bit, occupied with the white snakey. Hopefully Sakuya has remembered to watch her back, as the second man is not so inclined to go easy. A wild swing is aimed for the Genin's head, and it would likely knock her lights out if hit…
Yori's first strike is so swift that it's unavoidable. The man goes down quickly once the lightning-infused blade gets his stomach. The second man, while scratched, doesn't seem as phased, and he draws his own weapon, a pair of knives, and starts to lash out at the Saito to stop him from assisting Sakuya.
Michiko keeps an eye on the fight as she gets to the last man she had trapped earlier. "Could you please tell me who sent you? Or did you just desire the goods in the cart?" she questions, holding a kunai to his throat.

The swing aims for Sakuya's head while she is suspended from Zuzu. Dipping her head back a moment, she sees the man about to swing down upon her head. Her eyes widen as she grabs Zuzu and pulls as hard as she can to right herself, narrowling missing the strike. The snake hisses in distaste over their master's choice of action, given it hurt them in the process. The man Zuzu had his teeth sunk into would by pulled off the branch as Sakuya is righted. The man's strike hit the branch where her head was an moment ago, causing it to crack and nearly shatter. Sakuya would attempt to return the favor by swiftly kicking the man in order to push him off the branch. Of course she drops down to follow him if it connects, for when the bandit hit the ground Sakuya would land plant her foot in his face via gravity. "That was clooooose. Very close." If he wasn't down for the count, she'd nudge her foot at his head. "Are you still alive?"

Yori faces the man remaining, a small displeased frown crossing his features as the man tries to stab him with a knife. The young Saito raises his blade to deflect the knife away before he brings his sword back down on him quickly, the blade remains filled with lightning and for a split second there's a high pitched whining from it as Yori lashes out at the man quickly before turning to check on Sakuya and Michiko.

Yori's fancy new move strikes accurately, seeming to hum right through his opponent before the man keels over. Ded. Yori would see Sakuya had (accidentally?) kicked her own opponent in a place where most men don't want to be kicked. He's doubled over and can hardly make a sound. Michiko doesn't seem to pleased by the response she gets, and she ends up knocking the dude unconscious for further questioning later. "Baka…" she mutters. Then she glances up. "Sakuya-san, tie him up. We'll get back to Kumo and get these two sent to prison. And we can take the cart back to your father. I don't think we'll find anymore bandits after this incident."

Sakuya would wave and confirm her orders. "Tie this one up! Understood!" She has no rope on her, but knows the caravan would, so she grabs the full-grown man she decided not to inject with venom, since she disabled him in a far more sinister way, and strains to pull him out of the foliage and onto the dirt road. "Oh, and yours too." She wonders if the team left too many alive. She wouldn't ask before grabbing spare rope from the merchant caravan and working to tie the living enemies up. She wonders if she could develop a way to make it easier to knock an individual down without all of the foot work and adrenaline.

Yori doesn't even look at the men he'd killed and instead starts walking towards Sakuya, flicking his blade to the side to free it of blood before sheathing it neatly. He goes about helping Sakuya then, dragging the living ones out and then holding their arms back while she ties them up…and giving her tips should she need them. When that's all done the young Saito would straighten up again and look around silently at the rest, then look to Michiko for their orders.

Michiko nods lightly to Yori. "Good. You two stay with the cart. We'll head back to Kumo. I think we're done here, though. Good job, you two."